.

.

Good-bye, Philip." Selwyn held the boy's hand a moment.

Once or twice Gerald thought he meant to speak, and waited, but when he became aware of the check thrust back at him he forced it on Selwyn again, laughing: "No! no! If I did not stand clear and free in my shoes do you think I'd dare do what I'm doing?
Do you suppose I'd ask a girl to face with me a world in which I owed a penny?
Do you suppose I'm afraid of that world ?--or of a soul in it?
Do you suppose I can't take a living out of it ?" Suddenly Selwyn crushed the boy's hand.
"Then take it!--and her, too!" he said between his teeth; and turned on his heel, resting his arms on the mantel and his head face downward between them.
So Gerald went away in the pride and excitement of buoyant youth to take love as he found it and where he found it--though he had found it only as the green bud of promise which unfolds, not to the lover, but to love.

And the boy was only one of many on whom the victory might have fallen; but such a man becomes the only man when he takes what he finds for himself--green bud, half blown, or open to its own deep fragrant heart.